Saint John the Baptist and the Franciscan Heinrich von Werl, Robert Campin.
Commissioned by a contemporary 15th century Franciscan to portray himself praying in the company of Saint John, this is, like Jan van Eyck’s Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife, another marvel of detail and glazing.
It was in paintings like this that the early Flemish masters had a field day with the amazing capabilities of the relatively new medium of oil painting.
Also, like Van Eyck’s image, Campin is playing with our point of view, by showing other figures standing in our (and the painter’s) place in the reflection in the convex mirror.
The original is in the Prado, Madrid. Click the magnifier to go to the zoomable image. If you right-click (Windows) or Control-Click (Mac) on the zoomable image, you can choose to view the entire image.
